


Fickle

by count_chocula



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, The fluffiest kind, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 16:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16099892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/count_chocula/pseuds/count_chocula
Summary: It took being told to leave for him to realize he wants to stay. He’s always been fickle like that.





	Fickle

The whole room is tinged a vibrant red. Like blood. Or a tootsie pop that’s been licked all over. Or the kind of kitschy Valentine's Day heart-shaped boxes full of gooey confectionary chocolate, pieces split open, caramel oozing out of some of them. 

 

The surfactant, saponin, in the room, makes everything smell like bananas. Or melons. Or some other sweet, fruity smell. It’s as though someone’s dragged their fingers through the insides of a ripped open peach. It’s so cloyingly ambrosial, it almost makes him want to gag. It reminds him too much of being stuck in the doctor’s office, teary-eyed from fear, being spoon fed pink bubblegum looking syrup that only made his throat itch more. 

 

Everything else feels metallic. It’s the kind of chemicals that grow in your skin. Cover you all over. He’s only been here about ten minutes, and he already knows that by the time he leaves the room, he’ll be stinking like an auto repair shop. 

 

He can’t imagine that Jonathan’s going to be any better. 

 

He’s been here since this morning. Early this morning. He’d been methodically dunking paper into tubs of liquid with red eyes when Steve walked in. His hair all fly-away and messy, like he’d rolled down the grassy hill beside the school, skirted up against the front doors with grass-stained jeans. Jonathan hadn’t said anything as he’d closed the door behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. Watched him develop the photos. 

 

He hasn’t gotten a glimpse of them, yet, but he knows they’ll be beautiful. Everything Jonathan does always is. 

 

His stomach chooses the moment he’s decided to leave to rumble. Jonathan snickers with his head ducked down, hair covering the back of his head, disappearing in his coat collar. He turns just enough for Steve to catch a glimpse of the small gash on the side of his face, partially obscured by a rainbow-colored band-aid. 

 

“You should head to lunch. I don’t want to hold you up.”

 

He turns away, picking up a dripping photograph from the tub with some black tongs, and hangs it on the drying rack with all the other photos. The line sags under its weight, and when he lets go, it sways up and down, until he steadies it with his pinky. 

 

“I don’t want to.”

 

It took being told to leave for him to realize he wants to stay. He’s always been fickle like that. Maybe it’s a long-dormant, never succinctly addressed, authority problem. Or maybe he’s just realized that getting his ass saved from an inter-dimensional, giant Herculean monster by a scrawny guy with horrible taste in music is the kind of thing you don’t just walk away from. 

 

Either way, when Jonathan turns to him for the second time, and he notices how deep the cut is, and how it’s probably going to scar, he jolts forward until he’s backed Jonathan up against the table. The trays get jostled, and the liquid inside of them comes so close to spilling, but they only ever touch the edge. He leans forward until he sees Jonathan’s brown eyes so clearly, so vividly, that he thinks that all the objects in the world that he’s ascribed some sort of beauty to in the past are only dim imitations. Insufficient copies. Jonathan smiles as Steve leans in closer.

 

He tastes like saponin, but he can’t find it in himself to mind.


End file.
